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Post by omega on Feb 6, 2007 5:01:56 GMT 7
Hi again, last but not least I've finished my work on the SlimServer module. This module installs the current version 6.5.1 of the SlimServer media server. Please check out the SlimServer module page at the Thecus Wiki here onbeat.dk/thecus/index.php/N5200_Module:_SLIMSERVER for more information and for the download link. Please note that the SLIMSERVER module requires the PERL module to be installed. It will not work without the PERL module. I've done a basic test of the SlimServer module and it was working without any problems. But again: that test was just basic. Hope you'll enjoy it.... Andreas
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Post by pellicle on Feb 9, 2007 20:40:42 GMT 7
This is excellent. I will spread the word in the SlimDevices forum and I now have a n5200 on order.
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murph
New Member
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Post by murph on Feb 19, 2007 12:21:30 GMT 7
Greetings All...
Got my N5200R this weekend after much deliberation. The support in this forum was the deciding factor. Thanks.
I do have a question about the SLIMSERVER module. I got it installed and running with no big issues, but I can't seem to figure out where the music folder I created is located. If I ssh into the N5200, the folder seems to be located at /raid/data/MP3. I can access this folder through windows, or through the N5200 web interface. I can see dozens of MP3's I put there as a test through ssh as well.
When I try set the folder in SLIMSERVER server settings, it does not error, so I think it sees the path OK. However, when I scan the folder or try to browse the music folder directly from the SLIMSERVER home page, it can not find anything and reports 0 files.
Any ideas out there?
murph
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Post by pellicle on Feb 20, 2007 7:14:14 GMT 7
I have my N5200 on order. I'd be interested in whether you have had luck with the slimserver plugins and how the speed of the SS web interface is.
I should be up in running in a couple of weeks since I will be traveling next week.
It would be good to post your experience also in the Slimdevices forums.
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murph
New Member
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Post by murph on Feb 21, 2007 4:38:20 GMT 7
Well, I've made a little progress, but nothing I like so far with what I've found... If I create a folder through the N5200 GUI Folder management link, I can't seem to use it as a data path in SlimServer. If I create a folder through SSH into the N5200, I can use that path in SlimServer, but then I can't seem to access it through Folder management or Windows, FTP, etc. Basically, the folder is not accessible outside of the normal N5200 connectivity (windows, FTP, NFS, etc). I really don't want to have to store music files in 2 different places. Once the data share was established and working for Slim Server, some other funny things were happening. When I scan the data folder for new media files, it does not look just in that folder. If you look in the music folder (in my test, it was /raid/data/test), it looked in the parent folders as well. When I listed the music available, it showed folders like data, raid, usbhdd, nsync, etc. Also a pain was that the Slim Server does not recognize any mp3 that has a lower case extension. I had to convert them all to uppercase .MP3 extensions. Once I weeded out all of the extra crap that it thought were media files, I was able to get it to stream music to my Windows media player. I do not have a stand alone media player, so I can not test that piece. The problems I encountered there are that to launch the media player on the client machine, you have to go to the path xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:9009/stream.mp3. while it does seem to stream extremely well, the media player will not show the title, artist, or any information in the tags. it only shows "Song:Stream". It does show the bitrate however. It would be nice to see the song title and artist of the currently playing song. It also did not automatically connect to the stream and start playing. Once the player is identified in the SlimServer config, you can reconnect at will, but when I had other friends helping to test across the internet, all the player IP's showed up in the server, but they could not connect to the stream without me stopping the current stream, and restarting it. weird. I streamed music for about 3 hours while copying files to the N5200, upload/downloading large data sets from FTP and moving data around in the SSH session. the Stream was never interrupted, or crackled. The performance of the N5200 was great for all the work. I watched the resources using a TOP command, and the CPU never got up over 4% or so. Still working and testing though, and I will post what I find. If anyone else is playing with this I would be interested in your findings as well. murph
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murph
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Post by murph on Feb 22, 2007 4:36:43 GMT 7
Even more news....
It seems my folder issue lies in the permissions somewhere. If I create a public folder through the N5200 interface, it works fine as a music folder for SLIMSERVER. The problem is that I do not want to create a public folder for this, I want to lock it down to specific users. Not sure yet how to get around this one.
One thing of note is that when I changed the music folder location and moved my mp3 files, the playlists all would no longer work. They seem to be tied to one location even though you change the music folder through the configuration page. Even when I changed them back to the original location, the playlists still would not work. So make sure you try not to move locations once your users start to define their own playlists.
So far, working pretty good performance wise. I have had 6 users streaming music from different locations via the internet. No drops or pops in the music which is good. They all created separate playlists and it works fine.
I do see an issue with multiple users from the same location. The media player client (at least for Windows media player), all seem to be defined by IP. So if you have multiple users coming in through the same network gateway with the same IP (NAT'd usually), then they are stuck listening to the same playlist. I am still trying to find an alternative to this, but no luck so far.
murph
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Post by omega on Feb 22, 2007 9:30:41 GMT 7
Hi murph,
thank you for all the feedback. I'll try to fix whatever needs to be fixed when returning from my business trip (maybe finished in 10 days or so).
You're doing a good job, keep us (me) informed....
Andreas
P.S. For the SlimServer specific questions you should contact the SlimServer forum as nobody seems to have a deeper knowledge here (including me). But again, if you know something that I can fix, please let me know.
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Post by pellicle on Mar 4, 2007 7:08:48 GMT 7
Back from travel and bumped the memory to 512Mb installed the disks in the N5200, created the raid and installed perl and slimserver. Dumped about 500 albums in a public folder called Music. Set up SS to use this as the default directory for music.
Increased the priority for Scan to -6 and set SS to do a full library scan. This pushed the CPU to 80 to 100% utilization during the scan and made the interface unusable during the scan. CPU load before the scan was 0 to 3. Since this is a seldom done operation this was OK. The scan was quicker than my Win XP on a 1.8 Athlon.
For some reason I have not been able to get a version of Squeezesoft running on my XP machine to connect to SS on the Thecus even though SS seems to see the player and lists it unders settings on the home page. Will work on this later.
The SB3 took a couple of times going though the settings to get it connected but seems to be working fine now. SB3 interface is quick and as expected there are no problems streaming even with flac files.
The Web interface is very responsive and setting up a random play list seemed almost instantaneous. Album art is displayed on for the music playing on the selected SB but is not displayed in the album list. I need to work on this and do not think it may be a set-up issue. Now blank squares are shown.
I will continue testing and try to install some plug-in I have been using on the XP SS I was using. But so far looks very good. Basic Squeezebox operation seems perfect. The web interface works and is extremely responsive which is one reason I went with the Thecus despite it being unproven.
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Post by omega on Mar 4, 2007 23:00:45 GMT 7
Hi pellicle, I'm happy that the SlimServer module works for you and thank you for the positive response. Postings like this are more needed, not only to give some motivation to the developers but also to show others that a module is working for others and that it is somehow tested by others. The common problem for forums like this is that normally only problems are posted. Due to this I appreciate your post very much! Andreas
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Post by pellicle on Mar 5, 2007 0:59:34 GMT 7
Spent some time looking at the Softsqueeze issue. Softsqueeze is a free Java based emulation of the Squeezebox hardware. So it allows synchronised or independent playing of music with the Squeezebox hardware and other instances of Softsqueeze. It has native flac decoding as well as a number of other formats. Like the SB it is controllable form the Slimserver web interface.
Slimserver module on the N5200 was seeing the instances of Softsqueeze but the instances were not responding to the web interface changes or connecting.
In SoftSqueeze preferences there are two points (Basic and Network tabs) where the Slimserver host can be selected from a drop down box if detected. The program automatically looks for slimserver instances on the network. Both were defaulting to my original XP box instance. Selecting N5200 for both tabs did allow the player to connect but player was essentially non responsive. Shutting down the payer and restarting resulted in the settings going back to the XP box. Shutting the XP Slimserver instance off and repeating resetting the preferences and restarting program did not resolve.
Uninstalling and reinstalling Softsqueeze resolved the issue and it immediately connect and is performing fine.
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Post by pellicle on Mar 6, 2007 7:58:39 GMT 7
Andreas,
So far so good. I have almost everthing working perfectly.
As this was my first linux box I had a little learning to do and you modules were of great help.
In addition to the basic install I have also added in the WeatherTime plugin for Slimserver. Iwanted to insure I could add the plugins and there would be no issues.
After learning about SSH, SCP, linus permissions and the like and with the use of your SYSUSER, SSH, IMGDUP, NFSEXPORT, INFO I was able to tranfer the needed files to the right directory. Wasn't as difficult as I first imagined although I find the syntax a bit arcane. Brings back the old days.
Performance is excellent with the system supporting multiple flac streams plus heavy LAN usage with no issues.
The web interface is extremely quick which is one of the reasons for choosing the Thecus as the other consumer NAS boxes lack the CPU power to handle the more feature laden versions of SS recently released without significant web response degradation.
The only issue I have is album art is not showing up in the album browse mode. For music playing and for looking at an individual album the art is ther but browse mode is not showing the art. I am still working on this issue. But otherwise it is performing great.
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murph
New Member
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Post by murph on Mar 8, 2007 6:30:40 GMT 7
Hi pellicle, I've been having some great success with this module as well, but a couple of questions for you...
Are you able to see any mp3 files that are not in a public folder? If I set my streaming music shared folder to non public (through N5200 GUI), then SlimServer can't seem to access it. I'm sure it is a permissions issue although I haven't figured it out just yet.
Also, have you tried to stream to multiple clients that have the same IP yet? I have several collleagues that I work with that want to set up their own playlists. So far, I have only been able to distinguish the client by IP, and not media userID. This is not a problem on the LAN as everyone has a different IP, but is a huge problem for traveling friends that work at the same remote site. All of the clients then have the same NAT IP address hitting the N5200. Seems to cause issues, but again I am still trying to work around it. Since I have only been testing with Windows Media Player (10 & 11), it may be an issue with those players. I will try the SoftSqueeze player that you have tested with and see if it will recognize the media UserID instead of IP as an individual client.
Other than that, I think this module (Thanks to Andreas) is a great media server.
Keep up the testing and let us know how it is working for you.
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Post by pellicle on Mar 8, 2007 13:01:32 GMT 7
I have been concentrating more on verifying the operation of SS with Squeezeboxes and Softsqueeze on a local network. I wnt to try remote streaming to a location behind a NAT firewall but that is second priority at the moment. I know others are accessing SS remotels over the internet so this is possible but I will look at this after I am sure all basic functionalty and stability issues are resolved. This will make the n5200 SS combination a good options well as provide me with a smile and some confidence. I want this to be stable so it does not fail during some of my road trips so the family has musinc while I am gone. The XP solution on a machine used by others did not fit the bill here. I have run into a at least one issue on SS. The basis for doing many of the operation is the SQL database used to store album information including tag and graphics. IN testing this initially I thought all was well but in trying to resolve the album graphis issue in browsw mode have I have come to the beleif that there is a issue with the scanning function. This could be a rights issue but I am not sure. What I observe at the moment: The intial scan I initiate after a fresh install does not initiate after pressing the rescan button thru the wweb interface. It does start if I go to Musinc Folder under Browse. I have repeated this a couple of times. Rescan of the musin library does not work either in the Rescan for new or Clear and rescan mode. In digging into the log file for my SQL I see the following repeating sequence 070307 5:22:51 InnoDB: Database was not shut down normally! InnoDB: Starting crash recovery. InnoDB: Reading tablespace information from the .ibd files... InnoDB: Restoring possible half-written data pages from the doublewrite InnoDB: buffer... 070307 5:22:51 InnoDB: Starting log scan based on checkpoint at InnoDB: log sequence number 0 47452961. InnoDB: Doing recovery: scanned up to log sequence number 0 47452961 070307 5:22:51 InnoDB: Started; log sequence number 0 47452961 070307 5:22:51 [Note] /raid/data/module/SLIMSERVER/slimserver/Bin/i386-linux/mysqld: ready for connections. Version: '5.0.21-standard' socket: '/raid/data/module/SLIMSERVER/slimserver/cache/slimserver-mysql.sock' port: 9092 MySQL Community Edition - Standard (GPL) 070307 17:23:01 InnoDB: Database was not shut down normally! InnoDB: Starting crash recovery. InnoDB: Reading tablespace information from the .ibd files... InnoDB: Restoring possible half-written data pages from the doublewrite InnoDB: buffer... 070307 17:23:01 InnoDB: Starting log scan based on checkpoint at InnoDB: log sequence number 0 47621344. InnoDB: Doing recovery: scanned up to log sequence number 0 47621344 070307 17:23:01 InnoDB: Started; log sequence number 0 47621344 070307 17:23:01 [Note] /raid/data/module/SLIMSERVER/slimserver/Bin/i386-linux/mysqld: ready for connections. Version: '5.0.21-standard' socket: '/raid/data/module/SLIMSERVER/slimserver/cache/slimserver-mysql.sock' port: 9092 MySQL Community Edition - Standard (GPL)
In the slimserver log I see amoung a number of other items The following modules failed to load: DBD::mysql
To download and compile them, please run: /raid/data/module/SLIMSERVER/slimserver/Bin/build-perl-modules.pl DBD::mysql
Exiting.. The following modules failed to load: DBD::mysql
To download and compile them, please run: /raid/data/module/SLIMSERVER/slimserver/Bin/build-perl-modules.pl DBD::mysql Using TOP command I see PID USER STATUS RSS PPID %CPU %MEM COMMAND 2307 root S 7980 2001 0.3 1.5 httpd 954 root S 936 947 0.1 0.1 agent2 20048 root R 444 20001 0.1 0.0 top 2581 nobody S 68M 1 0.0 13.7 perl 2729 nobody S 19M 2636 0.0 4.0 mysqld 2694 nobody S 19M 2636 0.0 4.0 mysqld 2610 nobody S 19M 2581 0.0 4.0 mysqld 2642 nobody S 19M 2636 0.0 4.0 mysqld 2695 nobody S 19M 2636 0.0 4.0 mysqld 2636 nobody S 19M 2610 0.0 4.0 mysqld 2640 nobody S 19M 2636 0.0 4.0 mysqld 2641 nobody S 19M 2636 0.0 4.0 mysqld 2643 nobody S 19M 2636 0.0 4.0 mysqld 2692 nobody S 19M 2636 0.0 4.0 mysqld 2693 nobody S 19M 2636 0.0 4.0 mysqld 2336 root S 8484 2001 0.0 1.6 httpd 2335 root S 7992 2001 0.0 1.5 httpd 2312 root S 7980 2001 0.0 1.5 httpd 13374 root S 7976 2001 0.0 1.5 httpd I am not familiar with what shoud be running for mySQL but it looks like there are several processes running consistently using a fair chunk of memory.
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Post by pellicle on Mar 8, 2007 13:08:30 GMT 7
Here is some inforation that may be of help from the SS forums. You can access them here: [glow=red,2,300]http://forums.slimdevices.com[/glow]
Port 9000 open in router only needed for remote access to slimserver
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Quote: Originally Posted by dainapoo Hi, <snip> already correctly set up on my computer. He said I needed to call Verizon back and have them 'open up the ports that are needed', specifically 3483 tcp, 3483 udp, and 9000 tcp- same as is set up on my (and I guess, everyone's computer, with XP Service pack 2). Of course, it was too late for to get the <snip>
You only need to open port 9000 in your router if you plan to access your slimserver via the Internet, i.e. outside of your local network. And if you do open it up, be sure you put a username and password on slimserver otherwise you are creating a pretty large security hole in your network.
I have not done anything with opening ports in my router and I can use internet radio and squeezenetwork with no problems. So I don't think the other ports need to be opened in the router either.
You might want to get familiar with accessing your router's configuration screen. It may seem daunting at first, but once you become familiar you will realize it isn't so bad. Any routers I've used allow you to save your current configuration. Before you go an make major changes, just back up your current configuration and revert to it if things go really wrong.
Being reliant on somebody from Verizon to walk you through router settings is painful (as you well know).
This may have been asked in another part of the thread, but can you play internet radio from a PC on your network? If so, perhaps you could swap the IP address of the squeezebox and the working PC.
When I read through this when you originally posted, I intitially thought of an IP address conflict. And I wasn't surprised when your changes fixed the problem. Are you sure that you didn't lose settings that you had made? Perhaps you didn't save them and the settings were lost when a device was powered down and back up?
Just some ideas and things to think about.
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Post by pellicle on Mar 12, 2007 10:41:04 GMT 7
Reply from Pfarrel in Slimdevices forum. As I don't have another Linix box other than the n5200 I can't do much to try. On the other side I am getting ready to play with setting up one as I have been getting more familiar and have some other applications where linux would be a good OS.
did you run build-perl-modules.pl as the listing suggested?
You probably are missing the glue for Perl to MySql.
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